Journal of Religion & Film Volume 8 Issue 3 October 2004 Article 6 October 2004 The Birth of a Nation as American Myth Richard Salter Hobart and William Smith Colleges, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf Recommended Citation Salter, Richard (2004) "The Birth of a Nation as American Myth," Journal of Religion & Film: Vol. 8 : Iss. 3 , Article 6. Available at: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol8/iss3/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UNO. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Religion & Film by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@UNO. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Birth of a Nation as American Myth Abstract The Birth of a Nation was one of the most important films of all time, both for its technical and aesthetic achievements and for its enduring legacy of racism. This paper uses Bruce Lincoln's approach to myth as a form of discourse and Robert Bellah's notion of civil religion to show how Birth might be understood as a mythic component of American civil religion. From this perspective, Birth serves as a paradigmatic story of American origins rooted in ideas of white supremacy. At the end of the article Oscar Micheaux's work, Within our Gates, is used to briefly demonstrate filmic strategies for countering Birth as myth. This article is available in Journal of Religion & Film: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol8/iss3/6 Salter: The Birth of a Nation as American Myth The release of The Birth of a Nation (1915) forever changed the movies. The director, D. W. Griffith, set a new standard for film aesthetic by synthesizing new types of shots and cutting techniques, improving production quality and fidelity to historical sources, integrating music into film more comprehensively, and employing narrative conventions still widely operative in film. Birth's enormous success proved the financial viability of the new medium throughout the nation. The Birth of a Nation was also an exceptionally controversial film because of its grotesque depictions of blacks (generally played by whites in blackface), its racism, and its valorization of the Ku Klux Klan as savior and midwife of the new nation. To this day there is tension in criticism of Birth over whether to separate evaluations of its aesthetic achievement from its racist depiction of the American epic.1 It is precisely as an American epic, a national heroic myth, that religious studies approaches can help illuminate The Birth of a Nation and its relationship to American self-understanding. In general, however, scholars of religion have not explored how film contributes specifically to constructing a sacred sense of "Americanness," or what I will refer to here as "civil religion." Most studies of film and national identity have instead focused on questions of ideology.2 Published by DigitalCommons@UNO, 2004 1 Journal of Religion & Film, Vol. 8 [2004], Iss. 3, Art. 6 Perhaps more than any other medium of the twentieth century, film has worked to construct civil religion by presenting idiosyncratic images of the nation as reality. A mythological approach to The Birth of a Nation can help us see it as an American myth asserted in an argument over what constitutes American identity. By American myth, I mean it is a strategic discourse (Lincoln 1990) aimed at producing a particular sense of American identity and purpose by presenting as paradigmatically true an idiosyncratic account of America's origins. From this perspective The Birth of a Nation is not simply a reflection of a racist America, or an exploration of race in America, it is also a strategy for constructing America. My argument proceeds as follows. After first summarizing Birth's plot and themes, I use Robert Bellah (1975) to define civil religion. I use Bruce Lincoln's (1990) definition of myth to show that myths are a source for civil religion because they make claims about the ontologically true nature of particular societies. I then explore Birth and D. W. Griffith's comments about Birth to show that Griffith, though he often spoke in terms of historical truth, also considered Birth to be true in the mythic sense, and therefore a source for civil religion. In a penultimate section I use Oscar Micheaux's Within Our Gates (1919) as an example of a counter-myth deployed in response to Birth. The Birth of a Nation: a summary of plot and themes https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol8/iss3/6 2 Salter: The Birth of a Nation as American Myth On the surface, The Birth of a Nation tells the fate of two families just prior to, during, and after the Civil war. It is important to note that the film actually opens with scenes of the slave trade, predicting future discord in the nation with the first gnostic intertitle: "The bringing of the African to America planted the first seed of disunion." Thus, the film's character development and plot are immediately contextualized by transcendent themes of disorder and order. The central characters of the story are the Stoneman family of Pennsylvania and the Cameron family of South Carolina. Austin Stoneman is an abolitionist politician and the Camerons are cotton plantation owners. The young lads of both families have become chums at boarding school, and the story opens with the Stoneman boys off to the Cameron's estate in Piedmont, South Carolina, for a visit with the Camerons' "kith and kin." In Piedmont, Griffith portrays a prelapsarian order by showing the boys enjoying the Edenic life of the South, complete with visits to the happy cotton fields and the slave quarters, where the slaves do a joyful dance on the occasion of the white folks' visit. While the boys bond, Phil Stoneman is smitten with Margaret Cameron (Ben's sister) and Ben Cameron is taken with a photo of Elsie Stoneman (Phil's sister) which he has snatched from Phil. Though news of war soon interrupts the idyll, and the boys are forced to fight for their respected sides, Phil and Ben pledge fidelity to their loves before leaving. The separation by war, reunion, and marriage of Cameron and Stoneman families will Published by DigitalCommons@UNO, 2004 3 Journal of Religion & Film, Vol. 8 [2004], Iss. 3, Art. 6 serve as a surrogate for the separation and ultimately restored bond of South and North. As Wood argues (1984, 127), the fundamental plot of Birth affirms the belief that "the meaning of American history can be read best, or even exclusively, through domestic themes."3 Griffith does not glorify war in the Civil War scenes that follow. Instead he shows us the desperation and futility of war with moving intertitles like "War's peace" to describe body strewn battlefields. Throughout the film Griffith never allows the viewer to forget the common humanity of both (white) sides; by emphasizing that each side performed acts of wartime gallantry and humanity towards comrade and enemy, Griffith shows us that even at their most wretched, North and South can recognize humanity in one another. For example, when Ben Cameron, "the Little Colonel," leads a final charge against the Union, he pauses to "succor a fallen comrade" and is cheered by the on-looking Unionists. As he finishes his last heroic charge Ben almost dies, but he is saved when the Union commander, who happens to be Phil Stoneman, recognizes him. Ben is sent to the hospital to recover, and there he meets Elsie Stoneman, whose photo he has carried for nearly three years. Griffith makes Ben a metonym for all Southern men, pushed to the limit of endurance by the circumstances of war, but still honorable and noble. After the war he is slated for execution on false charges, just like the South he represents. When https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/jrf/vol8/iss3/6 4 Salter: The Birth of a Nation as American Myth Ben's mother hears of the charge she saves him with a direct appeal to "the Great Heart," President Lincoln. Lincoln's mercy to Ben reflects the President's gracious attitude toward the South. Lincoln vows that he will deal with them "as if they had never been away," despite Austin Stoneman's own desire that "Their leaders must be hanged and their states treated as conquered provinces." The tragedy of Lincoln's assassination marks the rapid descent of the South into death and chaos. Austin Stoneman, megalomaniacal mulatto mistress at his side, becomes "the greatest power in America," an "uncrowned king," and uses his power to champion equal rights in all respects for blacks. Griffith makes plain the significance of Austin Stoneman's call for equal rights in the placards held by blacks at a political rally in the film, which read "Equality: Equal Rights, Equal Politics, Equal Marriage." These terms foreshadow the trajectory of the rest of the film. The thoughtless good intentions of abolitionists lead to a pollution of the body politic and ultimately to rape of white women and a pollution of white American blood that can only be restored by ritual blood sacrifice and a savior. Griffith continues to remind the viewer of his mythic metanarrative through references in the intertitles to biblical passages which were most likely recognizable to viewers at the time. For example, as Austin Stoneman's mulatto Lieutenant, Silas Lynch, organizes the black vote, the intertitle reads "Sowing the wind" (Hosea 8:7) to prepare us to "reap the whirlwind" (8:7) in another intertitle prior to the upcoming rape Published by DigitalCommons@UNO, 2004 5 Journal of Religion & Film, Vol.